Mormons asked children invasive questions about sex

By Ben Schneiders & Royce Millar

May 5, 2018 — 7.35pm

Australian children as young as 12 are being asked explicit questions about their sexual thoughts and whether they masturbate, as adult male religious figures in the Mormon church use one-on-one interviews to test children's sexual "purity".

The invasive questioning has been described as an "abuse" of children, according to leaked correspondence from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Mormons regard sexual purity as a key tenet of their faith and regard breaches – sex out of marriage, sex between gay couples, even masturbation – as being next to murder in terms of sinfulness.

Shawn was brought up in the Mormon religion and was required to talk explicitly about his sexual thoughts.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Stephanie McLean, who was brought up in the church, recalls a Mormon leader grabbing a white rose, pulling off the petals and stamping on them, then saying: "that's you after sex".

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"Spit out piece of gum and step on it, 'That's you after sex'," she was told. "The idea was that you were completely defiled by sex [outside marriage]."

The Sunday Age has spoken to more than half a dozen Mormons and former Mormons about the feelings of guilt and shame induced by being questioned as children in the church. A movement has sprung up in Utah, the headquarters of Mormonism, to protest against the interviews.

Probing questions

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon church, is a small religion but has rising political influence in Australia with just over 60,000 adherents, according to 2016 Census data.

In recent years, increasing numbers of Mormons have been recruited to the Victorian Liberals by the party's ascendant conservative wing.

Jane* was brought up as a devout Mormon in Melbourne.

"From the age of 12, you get probing questions about whether you have any unclean thoughts," she said. "You get told you should be ashamed of having any sort of sexual thoughts or being inquisitive.

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"To be honest, I lied … I wasn't going to be telling this man (a Mormon bishop), who is friends with my parents, that I had sexual thoughts."

Before they can attend the Mormon temple – an important religious milestone – children must undergo so-called "worthiness interviews" with bishops, who are akin to lay preachers.

A church handbook for senior religious figures, seen by The Age, lists matters for discussion with children, which include "moral cleanliness" and "refraining from any kind of sexual activity", including pornography.

Later as a teenager, Jane started dating a young Mormon man. She says she was beaten and raped by him but was told by church authorities not to go to police.

"You are taught that being impure sexually is next to murder, it would be better to die fighting off a rape than to be raped," she said.

'I drank the Kool-Aid'

Shawn was raised a Mormon and travelled overseas as a missionary.

"I drank the Kool-Aid when I was a Mormon, everything the Mormon Church said about sexuality and sexual values I followed 1000 per cent," he said.

Ex-Mormon, ShawnCredit:Dominic Lorrimer

He moved to Australia at 21 as an "extremely devout" Mormon before an "epiphany" several years later led to him to question his faith.

From a young age, Shawn was asked by Mormon leaders if he kept the "law of chastity" and if he was being sexually pure.

At 18, when he was about to go to the UK as a missionary, he was asked "point blank" by a church leader whether he had a "masturbation problem". The leader had a day job as an engineer, and no training in psychology. Shawn was consumed by "immense" shame and guilt and would confess to a senior church figure every time he masturbated. He was asked to check in weekly.

"I had no idea about sex at all," he said.

Shawn says he believed that sex was "evil" and when he started dating a fellow Mormon he was asked explicit questions.

When a senior church leader found out he had intimately touched his girlfriend, he took that to a higher religious figure in the church.

'Sharing feelings'

A representative of the church in Australia defended the questioning of children about sexual purity and said there were times when a discussion of "moral cleanliness" was appropriate.

"They [church leaders] are counselled to not be unnecessarily probing or invasive in their questions, but should allow a young person to share their experiences, struggles and feelings," the spokesman said.

When a church leader meets a child or young person they are encouraged to ask a parent to be in an adjoining room.

After public pressure from current and former Mormons, the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, recently tweaked its policy to allow a parent or adult to be in the room with the young person if they "prefer". It did not stop children from being interviewed one on one.

A therapist and wife of a Mormon bishop, Julie de Azevedo Hanks, recently told The Salt Lake Tribune the questioning about sex was "intrusive" and "inappropriate."

“In no other situation would a parent allow or encourage their minor child to have sexual conversations with an adult,'' she said.

The church spokesman said leaders are told to seek professional assistance when they hear of abuse. "We condemn any inappropriate behaviour or abuse, regardless of where or when it occurs."

People gather for a mass resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City in 2015 after the church targeted gay members and their children.Credit:AP

Power imbalance

The recently completed royal commission into child sex abuse in Australia received 18 allegations of abuse relating to Mormon institutions.

In correspondence to the royal commission, obtained by the Sunday Age, one Mormon man wrote in graphic terms about his experience of "worthiness interviews" and the "humiliating" process.

"As you can imagine there is a major power imbalance having a child sit across from a male adult who is 'called of God', being asked to give an accounting of their 'dirty' habits," he wrote.

He criticised the church's "obsessive" emphasis on questioning children and listed typical questions that are asked in interviews including whether children looked at pornography or masturbated.

Commissioner Andrew Murray said in response that he had read with "considerable concern" the account of "abuse" from the Mormon man.

'Have you done this?'

Stephanie McLean said her interviews were not as graphic as some others.

Other Mormons describe a process of "bishop roulette", where the questioning was more or less explicit depending on who your leader was.

"I had to go through the interviews," McLean said. "I had those same questions, have you done this? Have you done that?"

She said that once she had done her worthiness interviews, she was able to go to Mormon Temple and participate in the baptisms of dead people, including people she did not know.

Mormons believe they should share the "blessings" of baptism with dead people who were never baptised as Mormons while living. That is often their ancestors.

Mormons believe the dead can then choose to accept or reject the baptism in the afterlife.

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Jewish Holocaust survivors are among those posthumously baptised as Mormons.

“I was dunked 20 times in 15 minutes,'' McLean said.

Mormonism, she said, was "really a full immersion experience, they want you there all the time" including many hours before school and on weekends.

''It's highly conditional. You can't just be an Easter and Christmas Mormon, it doesn't work that way."

Ben Schneiders is an investigative journalist at The Age and has reported extensively on wage theft, corruption, business, politics and the labour movement. A three-time Walkley Award winner, he has been part of The Age’s investigative unit since 2015.